January Movie Round-Up!!

Here's a fun post for all you imaginary readers out there! I am planning on doing a monthly or bi-monthly breakdown/round-up/turnabout of the movies that I have watched. I'll list them and give my feelings about them, since I know people are so interested. So here we go!!

1. Avatar (2009) - James Cameron
Of all the movies to start with! In reality, this was the first movie I watched in the new year. And it is fitting, as this movie is ushering in a new frontier of movie making. To say that this movie is a visual spectacle is an understatement. I have not seen another film that is more visually impressive than this one. That said, I wasn't totally blown away by the film. It was an average plot, to say the least, that has been done countless times before. As amazing as it looked, I still was distracted by the dialogue and acting (particularly from the cliche-riddled Stephen Lang and Michelle Rodriguez). What fascinates me the most about the film is the rabid fan base that is completely amazed by it. I will never disagree that this film is not important or awesome to look at. But I compare it to the Lumieres' film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. When it was first publicly shown in the late 1890s, people went insane and actually ran out of the theater because they were afraid of this train that was going to run them over. It was the biggest sensation of the entire year, perhaps the entire decade. Yet, when we look back on the clip now, it's still just a fucking train pulling into a station. I am not trying to belittle the significance of Avatar, because I do believe that it is an important film. However, that's what I think Avatar is: people are going ballistic now because they've never seen anything like it, but in 50 years we'll look back and it will be rather boring.

2. The Big Heat (1953) - Fritz Lang
This is an American film-noir from the famous German director, who ironically directed one of the timelss science fiction classics in Metropolis. This has got to be one of the premier noir films and is definitely a favorite of mine from the genre. The story follows a family-man detective Dave Bannion who bumps heads with the crime underground. The underground takes action against Bannion and accidentally kill his wife. Bannion then goes rogue to get his revenge on the killers and expose the corruption in his own system. Glen Ford plays Bannion and turns in a fantastic performance. There is also a phenomenal turn by Lee Marvin (one of my favorites) who plays one of the crime bosses. The roots for a lot of revenge films from the 70s can be found here. There is also a surprising amount of violence in here, particularly towards women. None of it is particularly graphic, but I still found it quite disturbing. Fritz Lang proves that he can master any genre with this great flick.

3. Shock Corridor (1963) - Samuel Fuller
I watched a documentary about filmmaker Samuel Fuller called The Typewriter, The Rifle, and the Movie Camera (1996) before I actually watched any of his films. The doc 100% convinced me that I had to see his films, because Sam Fuller was fucking CRAZY. The guy was the epitome of the term "old-timer." So the subject matter of this film is strangely apropo for such a bizarre filmmaker. The story revolves around newspaper writer Johnny Barrett who develops an elaborate plan to get committed to a mental institution in order to crack open a strange murder case. He badly wants to win The Pulitzer Prize and believes this plan will get it for him. As Barrett gets closer and closer to the truth of the murder, he starts to question his own sanity. This is one of the best depictions of mental illness ever put on film. There is one character in particular, a black patient named Trent who believes he is a KKK member, who is rather disturbing. If you are interested in movies about mental illness, you have to see this one.

4. Man Hunt (1941) - Fritz Lang
Another masterful Lang film. In the opening scene, a British soldier on a hunting vacation in Germany happens upon Hitler's chateau and has him in the sight of his gun. The viewer knows the shot won't happen, but just seeing Hitler in the crosshairs is exhilerating. From that point on, the film is constantly tense and suspenseful. Walter Pidgeon turns in an amazing performance as Captain Thorndike who stays classy and poised while constantly being chased by a very persistent Nazi. Most interesting thing about the film is Lang, a native German, made it on the cusp of WWII. And the film is VERY anti-Nazi, almost like Lang was making his statement about his countrymen. Historically it is a very interesting film and one that holds up amazingly well 70 years after the fact.

5. Hot Fuzz (2007) - Edgar Wright
This is a re-watch for me and I still love it just as much as the first time I saw it. This comes from the group of guys (Wright, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost) who brought us the brilliant BBC comedy Spaced and the "zombedy" Shaun of the Dead, which is easily in my top ten favorite films of the past decade. Hot Fuzz is not quite as good as Shaun for me, but goddamn it is awesome. This is a great combination of comedy and action. The end of the film really stands out as a fantastic action sequence, very stylized and full of homage to the serious, cheesy action films of the late 80s/early 90s. Like Shaun of the Dead, you can tell how much Wright and Co. really enjoy and strangely respect the source material. The combination of this and their spot-on comedic timing makes this an awesome movie.

6. Wall-E (2008) - Andrew Stanton
Cute is the best word to describe this film. Wall-E is a cute little character. The robot that he falls in love with is also cute. All the other little robots in the spaceship are cute too. I generally don't like cute movies, but every once in a while I will make an exception. This is one of those exceptions. This movie of course does not lack on the outstanding animation that has become the calling card of Pixar studios. Yet this film is much deeper than the general fluff kiddie-stuff that most animated films are full of these days. Human excess, environmental conservation and pollution, technological dependency are all big themes in this film and they are pulled off without being overly pretentious or "finger-wagging." It turns out when you mix strong social commentary with robots that are cute as a button, you can really knock it out of the park!

7. Planet of the Apes (1968) - Franklin J. Schaffner
This is another re-watch for me, but felt like a completely new film. I originally saw this film almost twenty years ago and it had been all but erased from my memory. Science fiction is probably my favorite genre of film for two reasons. First, I love robots and spaceships (but who doesn't really?!?! Am I right folks!?). It's the genre that fulfills all of my nerd dreams and fantasies. Second, most of the best science fiction is speculative, creating amazing worlds that offer some glimpse into what may come for humanity, both good and bad. It excitedly and cautiously looks forward to what may come. This second aspect is what thrills me the most. Planet of the Apes combines all of this into a fantastical cinematic angel food cake covered in glorious, speculative icing. Humans devolving into apes? Apes with reign over man? Madness! This is a science fiction essential.

8. Lord of the Flies (1963) - Peter Brook
I unfortunately always associate this movie with school, dirty, filthy school! It seems that most films that I had to watch in high school I unduly consider terrible. So I thought I would give this one another shot, and I am kind of glad I did. When you are dealing with a whole gaggle of kids like this, you can't really expect a whole lot of good acting. However, the film really captures what was so compelling about the book: how these kids just go bat-shit crazy and start murdering each other. The high points of the film really stand out and help overshadow some of the annoying little kid "acting" and some strange editing and continuity things. Also, I want to shove the conch up Piggy's stupid ass. The actor who played Piggy may have unwittingly turned in one of the most accurate portrayals of a literary character in any movie.

9. Death Wish (1974) - Michael Winner
I spend a lot of my time scouring the movie landscape for the best/biggest bad-ass in all of cinema. There are a lot of potential candidates out there and I would put Charles Bronson's character from this movie close to the top. Bronson is the kind of guy who I am absolutely convinced was a 100% totally awesome dude in real life who snatched birds of prey out of the sky with his bare hands and seduced thousands of women. He really fits into the bad-ass mold perfectly. On the surface, Death Wish is a simple revenge film. Bronson's character, Paul Kersey, experiences a terrible tragedy when his wife and daughter are assaulted by a gang of street-toughs (one of them being a young Jeff Goldblum). The normally mild-mannered Kersey breaks out of his shell to seek vengeance on the underground crime world. The film paints a bleak portrait of city crime and the ineffectualness of the police. We root for Kersey, who has now extended beyond simple revenge and has become a night vigilante, distributing his own brand of justice to the crum-bums and hoodlums who prowl the streets. Bronson pulls it off so well that I would not be surprised to find out he actually was a vigilante in real life. If you like this one, you should also check out The Mechanic, starring Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent.

10. Police Story (1985) - Jackie Chan
A lot of people in the US, including myself, are only familiar with Chan's American movie career, which ranges from anywhere from mediocre (Rumble in the Bronx) to atrocious (Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon, and so on). But before being imported to the US market, Chan was wildly successful in China with a slew of over-the-top action films. Police Story is the first of these films I have seen and I found it entertaining. It still contains a lot of the cheesy, bad acting that plagues some of Chan's US films. But the action in this film is top-notch. There is no denying that Chan is a talented and entertaining performer. The final ten or fifteen minutes of this film is so full of great martial arts action, you're liable to karate-chop your television in half with excitement! I just wish he they had cut back on the silly dialogue that fills the spaces between the action. The parts where Chan is just chatting it up can get boring very quickly and make you yearn for the next punch to be thrown. But when the fists finally start flying again, you are in for a treat.

11. Rambo (2008) - Sylvester Stallone
Holy. Fucking. Shit! I cannot believe I have not seen this movie until now. I should have known after seeing the other films in the series that Sly would not disappoint. "He is old and washed up!" I said to myself. "There's no way he can produce a top-notch action flick!" Well, I was right about the old part. But good God, he is far from washed up! This has, hands-down, the most ridiculous action sequences I have ever seen in any movie. EVER. Do yourself a favor and go on Youtube and find the video that has a kill count for this film. It will blow your mind to little tiny bits! The absolute best part about this movie is that the script and acting is absolutely atrocious. GOD I LOVE IT! It's like putting cheddar cheese on a golden plate of caviar, mixing it up in a blender, and gulping it down in one cheesy, caviar-y, bullet-y gulp. At the end of this movie, I had so much adrenaline coursing through my body that I ran out into the cold night air and hunted down a ten-point buck by scent ALONE, broke it's neck with my bare hands, and drank its blood while baying at the moon. THIS MOVIE WILL TURN YOU INTO A MANLY, BLOODTHIRSTY, WEREWOLF! Watch it now and grow some hair on your chest.

So that is all for January (Only 11 movies, I know!!). Check back for the post for February which will be coming very soon.